Goa Governor convenes day-long assembly session on February 28

Goa Governor Mridula Sinha on Saturday announced a day-long session of the state assembly to apparently avoid a constitutional crisis arising out of the outgoing house not having met for six months.

A spokesperson for the state government said that the Governor has convened the House session at the month-end. "The honourable Governor has convened a day-long session on February 28," he told reporters.

The announcement comes a couple of weeks after Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar had insisted that there is no need to convene a session of the outgoing Goa Assembly and ruled out a constitutional crisis, if the House is not convened for more than six months, because of the ongoing electoral process.

"The Advocate General has orally informed me that there is no reason to worry if the assembly session is not convened," Parsekar had said.

The Opposition had been demanding that the Governor should either dissolve the House or convene a session of the state assembly before March 3, in order to avoid the crisis.

In a letter sent to the Governor earlier this month, state Congress President Luizinho Faleiro had warned that the coastal state is heading for a constitutional crisis. He had urged the Governor to either summon the state Legislative Assembly by March 3 -- results to the state assembly elections will be declared on March 11 -- or dissolve the House altogether as per the provisions of Article 174 of the Indian Constitution.

March 3 marks the end of the six-month period, during which members of the sixth legislative assembly have not met for a session.

"If the government of the day seeks to continue in office without having the sitting within six months, then this will be wholly unconstitutional and the government will be an unconstitutional government," Faleiro had said in his letter to Sinha.

A city lawyer-activist Aires Rodrigues had also petitioned the Panaji bench of the Bombay High Court, seeking dissolution of the House on technical grounds.

--IANS

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